Scott Adams:

If Israel had an enemy that it could make peace with, then I might feel different. But it doesn’t, so Israel’s best interests dictate keeping the neighbors too economically weak to purchase expensive weapons, and to control as much territory as possible. I don’t begrudge any country that makes rational decisions in support of its own safety.

Now, obviously, when Israel drops its USA-provided cluster bombs on its neighbors and steals and occupies its neighbors’ land, and imposes sanctions on the occupied people of Gaza and cuts off their fuel and electricity and lets them starve —- well, that’s rational, right? What else can they do? The only way for a country to be sure of its safety is to lay waste to its neighbors.

On the other hand, when those nuts in Hamas and Hezbollah fire some rockets at Israel or blow up a bus in Jerusalem? What the fuck are they thinking? They’re powerless. The legitimate use of violence belongs to the powerful. Duh, right? How can you make peace with powerless oppressed people who think they’re allowed to use violence?

That’s right, isn’t it?

No, that is wrong.

I used to ride the bus to school, and once as I was waiting for it to arrive I was accosted by an expert in Middle Eastern politics. I say she was an expert because she knew which folks are Shiite and which are Sunni. That makes more expert than, say, most people in the Bush administration or in Congress. This was last summer, when Israel was making the rational decision to support its own safety by bombing residential neighborhoods and ambulances in Lebanon. In retaliation for Hezbollah firing missiles into Israel which wounded several civilians. So this lady started out just listing every group of people in the Middle East and whether they’re Shiite or Sunni, and which groups hate which other groups, and I just nodded and said, “Uh huh, right,” wondering with dread what her point would be when she finally came to it. And it turned out her point was that the problem with peace in the Middle East, the reason you can’t make peace with these people, is that they’re not afraid to die! Americans and Israelis, being rational, fear death. This puts us at a disadvantage in our ceaseless wars with the hordes of would-be martyr terrorists, which I suppose we make up for with our huge-ass bombs and laser-guided missiles.

They’re all suicidal nuts who want to be martyrs, so we might as well slaughter them all.

The violence of the powerful is right. The violence of the powerless is wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.